Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 October 1876 — Widows. [ARTICLE]

Widows.

Wlntcr-kSpt apples,. seasoned -u nLliai linif hilllll a 372«V»t>. msfs&zzarzsz widow Is, perhaps, the rnost interesting object In nature--ar in art. She represents experience without Its wrinkles or its gray hair. She has matronly beauty and maidenly freedom combined. Bhe is grief with a laughing eye, sorrow In a hones as festival, a silver moon in a sable cloud. Bbe is too sweet for anything! like all good things, ■be can only be created at a great sacrifice. Mre. Browning says that you mast spoil a man, and he meat be pretty thoroughly spoiled before bs can leave a widow. Thie black swan—this mournful Phoenix —rise* only out of the funeral am that holds the ashes of a husband’s heart! Let us wipe away the briny tear and proceed. Pergiit PUrUts. Poets, statesmen, heroes and philosophers have each felt the indefinable influence of widowhood. Its quality is not strained. It fells alike upon the jast aad the ualost. None can escape it. Edward Plsataganet wedded the widow Elisabeth Grey, though he knew she brought eivil war for her dowry.

Ned Waller, Joe Addison, Sam Johneoo, George Washington, Napoleon Bonaparte, John Wesley, Tony Weller, Ben. Disraeli, and all the great boys married widows. Henry the Eighth was so fond of them that ha took two| and King David was so pleased with Abigail, the widow of Nabal, whom be took to wife, that he tamed Bethsheba into a widow on purpose to merry her. Judith ceases her cogitations over the virtues of the late lamented Manasses, of Betlmlla, puts off her mourning and adorns herself in brave attire to set out for the camp of Holofernes; we feel instinctively that she will come back with his heart, bis crown or his head, whichever she goes for. When (he old Widow Naomi counsels the young widow Ruth how to lay her snares in the harvest fields of her kinsman, and spring her net on the threahiag-floor, wa know at once that the wealthy bachelor Boas Bight M well order the wedding garments. Allen Ramsey wrote a song tolling how to woo • widow; he might as well have left directions haw to get streek with lightning.